


Everything She Wants

by cvioleta



Series: Metamorphosis [1]
Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Past Joker/Harleen Quinzel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 15,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9253202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cvioleta/pseuds/cvioleta
Summary: How does someone go from being a rational, law abiding good girl to being Harley Quinn? All it takes is tapping into what she really wants and that's more complicated than a little electroshock or a swim in acid. A rewrite of the story with less comic-booky elements, an exploration of how people sometimes become what they associate with.   And of course, eventual smut because I ship them like crazy.





	1. Chapter 1

She told herself that it was all part of the game.

                The sexy heels, the skirts that were a little too short. They talked to her because they wanted to please her, couldn’t help wanting to please the prettiest girl in class and be excited that she was listening to what they had to say.  No such motivation pulled at them when one of the other doctors faced them.  It was easy enough to stare sullenly at mousy, clinical Joan Leland…but Dr. Quinzel?  She smiled and you wanted to keep her smiling.  Harleen knew it – and used it.  She had every intention of advancing quickly in her career.  There was no need to laboriously climb the ladder when you could charm your way straight to the top, both with senior administration and with patients. 

                The game was endlessly entertaining.  They didn’t want to talk, or they lied.  They’d try to figure out what she wanted to hear, or say things to shock her.  The truth was like buried treasure, and sometimes she’d get it out of them, and sometimes the truth was news to them, too.  She reveled in the looks on their faces when they finally faced what drove them to commit the horrific acts they were imprisoned for.  _Victory._   It never got old.

                Certainly, her life inside the Arkham walls was more engaging than her life outside them.  She knew she led a charmed life by most peoples’ standards. A scary-smart honor student and champion gymnast, she had sailed easily through college and medical school and landed a job usually reserved for senior psychiatrists with many years of experience behind them.  Her personal life seemed equally charmed; she had a handsome boyfriend with a six figure income and a black Porsche. Harleen privately thought the car was the most exciting thing about him and loved to borrow it, escaping speeding tickets regularly with a sexy smile and a flash of cleavage as she leaned over to get her purse.  She knew she should be grateful for her life.  Her single friends were always around to remind her that most young women didn’t have a successful, Porsche-driving boyfriend who adored them.   Harleen knew she would always crave something more, even if she did not allow that craving to affect her decisions. 

                Today, her car – a much more boring SUV – was in the shop so she had dropped Ben off at his office and was heading to work in the Porsche.  Rush hour traffic made it impossible to enjoy the drive at the speed she preferred, so she cranked up the music on the car’s premier sound system and sang along with Taylor Swift.  She was in a great mood – fantastic, really – because she was getting the opportunity to work with Arkham’s most notorious and challenging resident, the Joker.  Admittedly, the opportunity had arisen only because he had snapped the previous psychiatrist’s neck, but Harleen wasn’t worried about that.  The guy had been so annoying and patronizing in the way he talked down to patients that Harleen’s first thought up on hearing the news was “good riddance.” 

                You had to respect these kinds of patients. They knew if you didn’t, and that would make any progress impossible.  _Psychiatry 101_ , Harleen thought, _and a concept that could cost you your life if you didn’t understand it._ She pulled into Arkham and paused to touch her fingertip to the scanner.  The gates creaked and slid open so that she could drive into the lot. 

                When she got to her office, Dr. Arkham himself was waiting for her. She stole a quick glance at her cell phone to confirm she wasn’t late.

                “You’re not late,” he said, noticing her action.  “I just wanted to make sure we had a chance to sit and talk about protocols before your session with the Joker.”

                Harleen smiled and sat down at her desk.  “Of course. I appreciate you taking the time to give me some guidance.”  She needed his guidance like a fish needed a bicycle, but men responded so well to flattery and this was the man who signed her paycheck.  It couldn’t hurt to keep him happy.  Predictably, he beamed. 

                “You’re a very competent psychiatrist and I know you’ve handled yourself well with challenging patients before, but the Joker is infamous, as you know.  We’ll have him in a straightjacket and strapped to the chair for your sessions to protect you physically, but a physical attack isn’t our only concern. “

                Harleen nodded and waited for him to go on.  “The Joker, despite our best efforts, finds ways to communicate with his organization outside of these walls.   We may have him locked up, but he has a veritable army in Gotham, ready to do his bidding.  It is incredibly important that you do not give him any information about yourself that he could use to find you.  And he will try.  Innocent questions that might reveal what part of town you live in or what you do when you’re not here.”

                “Patients frequently try to turn the conversation around and learn something about their doctor,” Harleen noted.

                “Not like him,” Arkham interjected.  “There’s no patient here with an I.Q. that even comes close to his. Quite frankly, he’s more intelligent than most of our staff.  That’s one reason I’ve assigned you to him – I believe you’re one of the few here who will see through his tactics.  I’m just asking you to be sure that you are always on your guard around him.  Don’t wear anything that could give him information about you.  Don’t smell like anything that could give him a hint.  Don’t say a friendly word to a guard in his presence that might reveal something about yourself. Do you understand?”

                Harleen met his gaze, unflinching.  “I understand completely and you won’t have to remind me to be careful. I always am.  Look around you.”

                Dr. Arkham did as she suggested. Her office was as plain as the day they assigned it to her. No personal pictures, no colorful knick-knacks, no candles or even a dish of candy. Nothing to suggest a single thing about the woman who worked in that space.  And this was a space a patient was unlikely to ever see.  He chuckled.

                “This conversation has probably been unnecessary. You always show the very best judgment in working with the most dangerous of our patients.  But it is always a pleasure to see you.”

                Harleen smiled.  “You as well. I will have the report of my first session with the Joker in your e-mail by 5:00.”  She watched him as he got up and turned to walk away, noting how his eyes traveled across her cleavage instead of her face.  _Men, so easy, and none different than the rest,_ she thought.  She logged into her computer and pulled up her last few reports on her first patient of the day. 


	2. Chapter 2

As two o’clock grew closer, Harleen found herself obsessively checking the time on her computer screen, even though she had an alarm set as always to remind her when it was time to go to her session.  She was just gathering up her things at 1:50 when the phone rang. It was Ben calling, which he rarely did because he knew she was so busy at work.   Annoyed, she hesitated but then answered – what if it was a real emergency?

                “Hello?”

                “Harls!  I’m glad I caught you.  I just got a call and that merger we’ve been working on is set to go through, but they want me on a plane to Dubai this afternoon to talk to Samir in person.  I’ll have to be away for a week.”

                _Ah, sweet freedom,_ she thought sarcastically.  “That’s wonderful, honey!”

                “You’re not mad?  About your birthday?” He sounded surprised.

                She had forgotten about it herself, and wondered why he couldn’t have sent a text.  The clock was ticking and she didn’t want to be late for her session.   “No, of course not.  Business first, you know I’d do the same.  We can celebrate after you close the deal – we’ll have a lot more money to celebrate with!”

                Ben laughed.  “Think about what you want for your birthday – it’s safe to say you can have anything your little heart desires!”

                Harleen would have liked him to do something exciting and original and unexpected, but she knew he didn’t have any of those things in him, so she gave the good girlfriend answer.  “I don’t need anything but you.  Have a safe trip, I love you.   Bye!”   She ended the call and headed for the door.

                When she arrived at the room, the Joker had already been brought in and was strapped to the chair. Despite the straightjacket, he maintained his dignity. He lacked the obviously psychotic look or the depressed body language of her other patients.  In fact, it immediately struck her that if you put a business suit on him, covered the tattoos and dyed his hair back to a natural color, he’d fit right in at a meeting with Ben and all the other young, wealthy businessmen they knew.  That was interesting.  Who had he been before he was the Joker?  No one knew.   She entered the room.

                He had been a million miles away, lost in thought about what he would do to the Bat the second he was out of there, but his first look at Dr. Quinzel jerked him back to the present. She looked like Grace Kelly in a lab coat and heels.  Even if such a creature decided to practice medicine, what was she doing here?  And why wasn’t she nervous?  Did she think her pretty neck couldn’t break?

                Harleen smiled, turning on the charm.  “I’m sorry that we can’t shake hands, but I am Dr. Harleen Quinzel.”

                The Joker smiled back, as she had been warned he might do.  “He’ll either try to charm you or scare you,” Joan had told her.  “Whichever he thinks he’ll get farther with. He reads people well.”   _Excellent,_ thought Harleen, _so he already figured out I’m not scared of him._

“Dr. Quinzel.  Hmmm…are you one of those child prodigies who finished medical school at 17?”  He smirked and watched her reaction but Harleen was used to the comments about how young she looked – she fielded them regularly from both patients and staff.

                “I’m actually 82, just a heavy Botox user,” she responded. 

                He broke out in delighted laughter and she smiled in return and sat down.   She was funny?  They actually sent someone in here with a sense of humor?  Couldn’t be.  No one like that worked at this dungeon. 

                “So what gave you the idea to snap Dr. Buchanan’s neck?” she asked. 

                _No beating around the bush with this one_ , he thought, mildly impressed.   “His mouth kept opening and the stupidity in his brain kept coming out of it in words. It was a mercy killing.  I killed him as a mercy to myself.”  The Joker cackled and smiled gleefully.  Harleen knew she shouldn’t be in agreement, but Jeremy had been such an ass that the Joker’s response struck a chord. 

                “You’ve scared off much of our staff.  Would you prefer not to have therapy?” she asked. 

                “I’d prefer,” he dragged out the word, “not to talk to idiots.  Are you an idiot, Dr. Quinzel?”

                _Nicely done,_ she thought.  _Good attempt to try to get me to talk about myself and tweak me about a topic I’m likely to be easily offended by. Nice try, but no cigar._ “I’ll leave that to your subjective judgment,“ she replied calmly.  “Or you can jump right to trying to snap my neck.”

                _No fear,_ he thought. None at all. He could smell it on people…and most people had it seeping through every pore around him. Why wasn’t she scared?   He was getting annoyed. 

Suddenly, he threw his body against the straps, watching her closely.   Her neck tensed, her chin lowered, but she didn’t jump or move away.  She looked like she was on her toes, prepared to fight back.  Then it hit him.

“Martial arts training, Dr. Quinzel?  You don’t look like the type.”

It took her aback for a second. He was far more perceptive than the records or her colleagues had revealed. She reminded herself not to confirm or deny any of his observations.

“What type do I look like?” she inquired, knowing his response would tell her a lot about him.  It was important to get him to talk; not to get him to talk about anything in particular.  With previous therapists, he had generally refused to talk, or responded to everything with maniacal laughter.

He cocked his head and considered her. “When you walked in, I’d have said Upper East Side. But there’s a hint of the streets about you.  I’m not the first bad guy you’ve had to fight off.  Brooklyn?” he raised his eyebrows and smirked as he saw that he’d hit a nerve.

 _What?_ Harleen thought.  _Is my accent showing?_ She had tried so hard to retrain her voice to sound professional and upper-class, and now this gangster had seen right through it in five minutes.  Yes, he was going to be as frustrating as she had been told, but she was determined not to let him distract her from her goal.  Her first impression of him came to mind and she smiled sweetly.

“Whereas there’s a hint of the country club about you,” she observed. “Which one?”

The Joker’s mouth fell open in surprise.  He was silent for a moment and then he leaned forward and looked deep into Harleen’s eyes. 

“It doesn’t matter. I burned it down.”  He started laughing and it was all Harleen could do not to join in. 


	3. Chapter 3

                It was 1:35 a.m. and for the third night in a row, Dr. Harleen Quinzel could not sleep. 

                Ever since her first session with the Joker had ended with a revelation about his past, she was positively electrified. She had rushed back to her office and started searching the Internet for country club fires.  It didn’t take long until she found exactly what she was looking for.  Oakhaven, a 115 year old club in the Hamptons, so exclusive that no one had ever successfully obtained its member list, had burned to the ground in 1989.  The news stories talked about how the loss of life had been stunning because the emergency exits had been jammed, trapped dozens of patrons inside as the flames raged.  The cause of the fire was deemed electrical in nature and any rumblings of arson were quickly hushed up by the club’s attorneys. 

_It was him.  He told me the truth.  He burned down a building and killed 38 people…at age eight._

               She scanned through Google for images taken at Oakhaven in the 1980’s. Any one of the young boys could have been the Joker.  She wanted that membership list so bad she was ready to break in herself…maybe she could get a subpoena?

               Harleen looked at the clock. It was past two, and she had to be in her office by nine.  She snapped her laptop shut, turned off her light and willed herself to fall asleep despite the racing thoughts in her mind.  She remembered as she was drifting off that she hadn’t even bothered to check her e-mail to see how things were going for Ben in Dubai.  It could wait until the morning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               She woke up with a start, breathing hard and light headed.  A flash of her dream came to her…people running from the flames, some on fire, and the Joker’s crazed laughter through it all.  “You wanted to see inside my head, Harleen,” he’d said.  “This is what it looks like.  Are you enjoying the show?”   The clock showed 5:15, earlier than she had to get up but there was no going back to sleep now with those images in her head.

                 _Might as well get up and go for a run…clear my head._ Harleen pulled on a t-shirt and athletic pants, put her hair in a ponytail and slipped on her sneakers.  She could do an easy couple of miles and arrive at work fired up and ready to take on the day. If she could even concentrate on anything other than searching for the Joker’s past.  She almost felt sorry for her other patients, because it was obvious this one was going to take up most of her attention.   OK, she needed music – where was her phone?  She retrieved it from the bedroom and remembered that she should have checked her email last night. There was a message from Ben but she was more excited to see a message from Dr. Arkham.

               Subject:  Outstanding

               Dr. Quinzel,

               I read your report on the Joker and I have to say that I have never been more impressed with your work.  No one else has ever gotten a word out of him about his past, and with                  one session, you managed to obtain invaluable information that you were furthermore able to confirm as likely to be accurate.

               Excellent work.  I look forward to your next report.

               Dr. Arkham

Harleen squealed out loud.  Arkham was a dour old soul, and not easily impressed.  Take that Jeremy, she thought, thinking back to her first day on the job when Jeremy had coined her Psych Ward Barbie and expressed doubt that she really had a medical license.  Shame he wasn’t around to have to see her succeed where he had failed!  She danced out her apartment door, trying to get her earbuds in place, but stopped short when she saw something white on the ground by her feet.  She bent to pick it up, thinking it was a receipt that had fallen out of her pocket, but stopped short.

                It was a playing card.  A grinning joker with a clown hat smiling at her from atop the doormat.

                _He knew where she lived._

                Suddenly, a run didn’t sound like such a good idea.  Harleen backed into her apartment, slamming and locking the door behind her.  She paced mindlessly for a half hour, trying to decide how to handle this development.  Then, she paced another 15 minutes trying to decide what to wear to work.  _You must not show any fear_ , she told herself.   Still, she felt nervous and violated at the thought that one of the Joker’s goons had been to her home.  She dressed more sedately than usual, in a knee length navy shirtdress and a lower pair of heels.  Harleen left her hair in a ponytail and wore very little makeup. _You’re safer if you look plain, look less attractive, maybe then he’ll leave you alone…_

                But she wasn’t thinking of the Joker at that moment. She was thinking of another threat, the one that had cast his shadow over her entire life from the time she was 14. 

> _Harleen Quinzel had lost her father when she was ten years old. He went to work one morning and Harleen went to school, but just a few hours later her mom was at the school to pick her up. Something was definitely going on; the teachers were all whispering about it but no one had made any official announcement. Then she saw her mother.  Later on she found out about the accident, but she knew her father was dead the second she saw her mother’s face…hopeless, destroyed, nothing left.  And for the next few years, they had clung to each other, both having lost the man they loved most. Harleen concentrated on school, knowing that she had to make her Daddy proud of her, even if he wasn’t here any longer to see it.  Her mom went back to work and for a while everything was as good as it could be.  Until her mom met Kevin._

                Harleen pushed those thoughts out of her head. She needed to focus today, not get caught up in her own personal PTSD.  And she’d start by confronting the man in her present who didn’t understand boundaries.  He would understand them when she was done with him…that was for damn sure.  She looked at herself in the mirror.

                _Fuck that!  I am not a defenseless child and I’ll dress however I please._

                She quickly changed into a cream silk blouse, purple skirt and purple heels.  The ponytail stayed, but she pulled a few strands out and curled them to frame her face.  She spent a few minutes at the mirror giving herself a smoky, but still work-appropriate, eye and added a peachy lipstick that didn’t clash with the purple of the skirt.  Satisfied with her reflection, she walked out the door leaving the mousy clothes in a heap on her bedroom floor.


	4. Chapter 4

Her office phone rang and Harleen picked it up absent-mindedly. Whenever she wasn’t with a patient, she had been viewing photographs from school yearbooks at the elementary schools closest to where Oakhaven Country Club had been, trying to narrow down a facial structure that might be a young Joker.

                “This is Dr. Quinzel.”

                “Harls?”  Ben’s voice crackled from the distance.  “Are you all right?  You didn’t respond to my email last night or my texts this morning. I was worried!”

                _Crap, crap, crap, I totally forgot._ “Honey, I’m sorry I worried you!  I, uh, turned off my ringer for a session yesterday afternoon and completely forgot to turn it back on.” _Change the subject fast, Harl – that sounds lame even to you._ “How is Dubai? How have your meetings been going?”

                Ben, true to form, was easily led.  He jumped at the opening to talk about his trip, filling her in about Dubai and his very successful first day there.  He was sure the deal was going to go off without a hitch and it looked like they were going to get in some golf. Next to Harleen, Ben loved golf above all else. She never understood the appeal of what to her was a slow paced and boring game, but it got him out of the house on weekends so that she could go to yoga or indulge herself in her secret, guilty pleasure, reading romance novels. The men in those books were nothing like the man in her house…they were exciting, unpredictable and dominant.  Harleen fantasized frequently about a man who would take the lead, but had yet to encounter one in real life.  Ben couldn’t even pick a restaurant without her help, yet could somehow successfully run a multi-million dollar business.  It was inexplicable and frustrating. 

                The phone alarm binged, reminding Harleen of her session with the Joker in 10 minutes.  “Ben, I have to go, I’ve got a patient at 2 p.m., but I’m so glad you’re having a successful trip.  Get some sleep and call me in your morning!”

                “I will, and watch your door for a surprise!”

                Harleen froze for a second but then realized that Ben’s comment had nothing to do with what she’d found on her doorstep that morning.  “I can’t wait,” she responded.   She ended the call, touched up her lipstick and prepared for battle.

                When she arrived at the room, her patient wasn’t there yet. She looked at the guard and raised an eyebrow.

                “He ain’t cooperating today, Dr. Q,” the guard grumbled.  “Two of the boys went to get it done.”

                She nodded and decided to wait in the hallway so that she could continue to search Oakhaven pictures on her phone. The reception in the session room was nonexistent.  As she tried to browse, she heard a commotion from behind her. She turned and saw the Joker being marched down the hallway by two guards who had him restrained in every way possible.  Straps over his head and face had been added to the straitjacket, as well as ankle chains connecting his feet so that he could only move at a slow shuffle.  Arkham’s guards were burly, ex football player types whereas the Joker was slim and athletic.  Harleen wondered why the overkill.  The guards wrestled the Joker into the room and strapped him to the waiting chair.  His hair was wild, he was sweating and she could see that he had fresh bruises and cuts on his face and hands.

                “He’s a crazy motherfucker, Doc., there ain’t no fixing that,” opined a beefy but none too bright guard named Kuzik. 

                Harleen was suddenly angry.   “Where did you get your psychiatry degree from, Kuzik?  The ones in the bottom of a Crackerjack box don’t count.” 

                From inside the room, she heard the Joker cackling.  _He’d stop quickly enough when he realized he was her next target._ She entered and closed the door.  The Joker was smiling delightedly at her.

                “Shut up,” she said and saw the anger flare immediately in his face.  “We’re going to start today by talking about the word no. I don’t think you hear it a lot.”

                He laughed again, “Oh, I _hear_ it, Doctor. It just tends to stop after I shoot them in the mouth.”

                Harleen sat down and stared at him.  She would show no weakness, nor look away.  “Did you think I’d be impressed that you found out where I lived?  Any 13 year old with an Internet connection could do that,” she scoffed. 

                “But I’m not a 13 year old with an Internet connection. I’m a 35 year old who is sitting before you trussed up like a turkey, “ he observed. 

                Harleen shrugged.  “Your goons are earning their keep.  I’d love to analyze them and find out what scares them so much that they obey you even when you are, in your own words, locked up here and trussed up like a turkey.”

                The Joker smiled.  “A better question is, what scares you so much that you’ve hooked up with a yuppie with an MBA and the personality of a piece of cardboard?  I’m so disappointed in you, I thought you had more spirit than that.  I bet he plays golf, doesn’t he, Harleen?   Probably watches it on television all weekend long, too.” 

                _Yes, and I hate it,_ she thought.  But she remembered herself and her position and she was determined not to react to anything she said.  “Playing golf is a healthy, nonviolent way of relieving stress.  You might want to try it,” she offered, smiling just as amiably.  “Your methods of relieving stress aren’t working out so well for you.”

                Cue the maniacal laughter; it was like everything she said was funny.  “On the contrary,” the Joker argued, “I have fame, wealth and – how did dear old Dr. Arkham put it? – an army to do my bidding.”

                _Did he have the whole place bugged?  Amazing._ “But not your freedom,” Harleen reminded him.

                “Do you reaaaaally believe this place could hold me if I chose to go?” he asked her.

                Harleen supposed that it did not, and knew it had failed to in the past, but was confused just the same.  “Why wouldn’t you choose your freedom if it was an option?”

                The Joker smiled.  “It’s easy to get. Most things are easy to get – freedom, money, guns, alcohol, drugs…women. After a while, it’s all so tedious.”

                “You stay in an asylum because it’s too easy to leave?” she asked, incredulous.  He didn’t answer, just gave her a look she couldn’t decipher. 

                The Joker shifted in his chair and tried to roll his shoulders in the straitjacket.  “Dr. Quinzel, may I ask a small favor?”

                “You can always ask,” she answered, leaving unsaid that asking did not mean getting. He caught it and grinned. She was a firecracker, underneath her outward politeness and decorum.  What would it take to light her up?  Time to start finding out.

                “I have a horrible itch right under my left shoulder blade and I can’t move in this thing. Would you mind?”

                She took a moment to consider if there was any way he could harm her if she was standing behind him. She didn’t think so, plus in that position she could easily flip him if by some chance he got free.  As he had correctly observed in their first session, she was trained in martial arts – and very good at it.  Harleen got up and walked around the table, taking care to stay at a safe distance until she was fully behind him.  It was hard to even figure out where a shoulder blade would be under the straitjacket, but she made her best guess and began to scratch his back. 

                “Ohhhhh…just a bit lower. Yes, that’s it right there.”  Harleen could not help but notice how the man was made of solid muscle.    Every inch felt taut and fit under her fingertips.  She was tempted to run a hand up the bicep that she could see bulging out from the restraint – she’d always been turned on by muscular arms.  _Stop it for God’s sake, this is a patient and on top of that he’s a psychotic killer who’s already stalking you.  Go sit down!_  She forced herself to return her hands to her sides and walked back to her own chair. 

                The Joker looked peaceful.  “I think I’m done talking for today.  Thank you for the assistance.  I’ll stop giving Tweedledum and Tweedledumber a hard time.”

                “That would be nice,” Harleen observed.  “If what’s easy is boring to you, then violence should have become boring a long time ago.”

                He leaned forward.  “Violence is like sex, Doctor. Even if it’s easy to get – it can still be fantastic.”  The Joker was still laughing as she walked out of the room without a backward glance.


	5. Chapter 5

> _Harleen laid in bed as quietly as a mouse. She had the covers up over her head and she tried to breathe as shallowly as possible.  Was that a noise, the creak of a floorboard?  Maybe just someone going to the bathroom.  She hoped, she prayed.  Then the creak was outside her door and she heard the knob turning._

She woke up with a start, heart pounding.  Her entire body was in a cold sweat and she was confused about what year it was.  _Stop it, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re 25, you’re an adult, it’s over…_ She turned over, pulled the covers up over her head as she had done then, and quickly fell back asleep and into a new dream.

> _She scraped her nails down his back, feeling the rock hard muscles beneath them.  He growled in her ear and one hand wrapped around her throat, but she wasn’t scared.  She wanted this, wanted him to take control, to give her what she had always craved.  She ran her fingers through his dense hair and opened her eyes to see ice blue eyes staring into hers. She realized it was a dream and closed her eyes as he kissed her, hoping she would never wake up._

The doorbell woke her and she sat up, momentarily disoriented.  It was Saturday morning, and it was her birthday.  Harleen quickly pulled on a sweat shirt and yoga pants and ran to the door.  A look through the peephole confirmed it was the delivery she was expecting from Ben. She opened the door and signed for the package, thanking the driver. 

                She set it down on the countertop. It was a huge arrangement of peach colored roses, her favorite, and there was an envelope with a card.  The card had a butterfly and inside Ben had written “Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady. Happy birthday Harleen and love always!”  Harleen smiled; they _were_ pretty and she knew she’d get more gifts when Ben returned from his trip. Or…was there something else? She saw something sparkling in the foliage and pulled it out, pricking herself on the thorns but hardly noticing. 

                A flawless diamond and platinum tennis bracelet lay in her hands, with a second, smaller card attached by a string.   A huge grin spread across her face.   She had been drooling over it online for months but knew she couldn’t afford it and, quite frankly, doubted that Ben could afford it.  He must have seen it in her browser history!   Guess he’s doing better than I thought, she mused, as she opened the second card. 

                Flowers die but diamonds are forever

                                                               ~ J

Harleen gasped and dropped the card on the counter.  The bracelet was $150,000. She knew only too well from her months of obsessing over it.  She had to send it back.  She couldn’t keep it!  Why would he do that?  She had seen him twice. They weren’t dating, he was a patient.  A patient with a better communications and tactical network than the CIA and, apparently, a limitless bank account. It had to go back. This was inappropriate. 

It was going back.  But as long as it was here, there was no reason not to try it on.  And once she had done that…there was no reason not to wear it around the house. It was a weekend, Ben was many miles away so he’d never see it.  God, it was gorgeous.  Harleen had grown up poor but had always had a taste for the finer things in life.  They always eluded her grasp – until now.

 _STOP IT!_ She mentally yelled at herself.  There was no way to keep it.  It was lovely. She would enjoy it for the day and then return it.  She clicked the bracelet into place on her wrist and sat down at the counter.  She had a million things to do but knew she would spend the day online, researching the Joker’s history. This was a puzzle she had to crack and perhaps the gift would bring her luck.


	6. Chapter 6

               It was a long Monday morning full of boring staff meetings. Harleen fidgeted and played with her bracelet, the one that she was _definitely giving back_ …unless of course she merely kept it locked in her desk drawer and only wore it at work.   The part of her that had been poor once upon a time balked at throwing away a six-figure asset that could buy a small home in many parts of the country.  And it would be interesting to see the Joker’s reaction to it.  What would he do if she wore it into session with him? What was motivating him, anyway?  He hadn’t expressed even the tiniest interest in her as a woman.  Not one lewd remark, not one salacious gesture.  She never even caught him looking down her shirt, as she constantly did with everybody from the guards to Dr. Arkham.  He was absolutely…respectful of her. But who buys a six figure bracelet for a woman they aren’t interested in? The Joker was a puzzle – an infuriating one.   She realized sheepishly that she was annoyed at his failure to flirt with her.  It stung her ego that he showed no interest – but, six figure bracelet.  What was he up to? 

               Two o’clock finally rolled around and she decided to keep the bracelet on. Let him notice. Let _him_ ask _her_ about it.  She made a quick detour into the bathroom and touched up her lipstick.  Harleen knew she looked stunning today. She was wearing a red blouse that hinted at being see through, and a short black pencil skirt with black stilettos.  The blouse was work-appropriate enough under her long white lab coat, but definitely drew the eye.  She reapplied her red lipstick and headed off to see the Joker.

               Today’s session started off quietly.  She made sure he saw the bracelet, but he made no comment.  Instead, he started to tell her about some of his better known crimes. She dutifully took notes and knew that she should be delighted he was so talkative, but it drove her crazy that he wasn’t mentioning his gift.  How could she address the situation if he wouldn’t bring it up?  Could it have come from someone else?  She ran through every “J” she knew and not one of them could have sent a six figure bracelet the way another man would send flowers.  It had to be him, but why wasn’t he seeking acknowledgement?  She didn’t want to bring it up because now it was too late - she knew he’d realize it was bothering her that _he_ hadn’t done so.  She watched him closely and there wasn’t even a hint of flirtatiousness about him.  He was doing exactly what she’d wanted him to do, taking his therapy seriously and answering her questions.  At least she would have an excellent report to show Dr. Arkham.

               “Did you have a nice birthday?” he suddenly asked.

                She raised her eyes to meet his but saw nothing more there than an innocent question. Well, not so innocent in that he shouldn’t have even known it was her birthday, but he seemed to know everything and delighted in the fact that no one could stop him from acquiring information. 

                “A quiet one.  My boyfriend is out of town on business, so I stayed home all day and worked.”  Inwardly, she groaned at her mistake.  She was so desperate to get a reaction out of him that she just crossed the line and revealed personal information. Not that he didn’t already have the information, but there was a big difference between him finding it on his own and her providing it.  Her face fell and she saw amusement dancing in his eyes. 

               “I don’t know when my birthday is,” he mused. “I’ve forgotten a lot due to the electro shock treatments.”  Harleen had not known they were doing this to him and she looked stunned, a fact which was not lost on the Joker.   “But maybe that’s for the best,” he added, cackling.   

               “That is not okay. I never authorized that. That’s barbaric!”  Harleen exclaimed. 

                “Your male colleagues seem to enjoy frying my brain.  Perhaps you should analyze their sadistic tendencies.”

                Harleen stood up and walked around the table.  “I’ll make it stop.   I can’t make any progress with you if you’re not clear-headed and … forgetting things.”   The urge to hug him was overwhelming and she stopped herself only with the reminder that the Joker did not, generally, like to be touched.  That was in his file.  So they just stared at each other for a moment.  The Joker treated her to his saddest, puppy-dog look. 

               “Why don’t you ask dear Dr. Arkham if we can do these sessions without the straitjacket?  It itches like the devil, and you know I’ve been on my very best behavior…with you, anyway.”

               She nodded.  He had shown no violent behavior toward her, other than trying to startle her during their first session. “Yes, I’ll see about that. And the ECT is going to stop.  I’m going to talk to Dr. Arkham about it right now.”  She swept from the room and the Joker smiled after she was gone.

 _I haven’t forgotten a bit, my dear,_ he thought.  _I’m just having too much fun watching you want something you can’t have.  I’m not the only one who’s poorly acquainted with the word no, Princess._


	7. Chapter 7

Harleen stood at the door of Dr. Arkham’s office until he noticed she was there. His face lit up immediately.  She had waited until the morning to have this conversation because she was just too angry about the news yesterday.  _ECT?  What’s next, lobotomies?_   _Were they running a medical facility here or a concentration camp?_ The more she thought about it, the angrier she got, especially with the fact that this information wasn’t in his chart.  She knew he wasn’t lying though; she had looked for the burn marks before he left and they were there.           

                “Harleen, come on in, sit down.”  She closed the door behind her and seated herself in one of the chairs facing his desk.  “I reviewed your report from your session with the Joker yesterday and called Captain Billings at the Gotham City P.D.  He thinks the information you obtained will put to rest at least three murders in his cold case file.  They’re ready to give you a commendation!”

                She smiled, telling herself this was most definitely a situation where she needed to play sweet, cute Dr. Quinzel instead of the one that wanted to pick up the paperweight at the edge of his desk and brain him with it.  “I’m glad you’re happy with my work. But I do have a serious concern to discuss with you.”

                Arkham beamed.  “Indeed you do.  We’re overdue on your six month review, aren’t we?  And I don’t think I’ll have any trouble getting you bumped up several pay grades with your recent accomplishments.  You know, when I hired you, there were people that thought you wouldn’t be able to do the job.  I enjoy that you’ve proven them wrong.”

                _Yes,_ she thought.  _Psych Ward Barbie, how could I forget?  And was there a real need to remind me or are you just making sure I’m good and grateful and trying to redirect the conversation because you know what I’m in here about?_

                “Dr. Arkham, I wasn’t aware we were still using electroconvulsive therapy here, much less that we were using it on patients without their consent. Is that why it’s not being noted in the charts or disclosed to the treating doctor?”

                He was startled and then decided to flatter her.  “I’m not surprised you picked up on that, Harleen. Your attention to detail was one reason I hired you.”  Arkham cleared his throat and continued.  “You know that this is not a typical psychiatric institution. We have patients here who are capable of unspeakable acts of violence, and have proven that again and again. Some are metahumans with superior strength and abilities.  We cannot keep the public or ourselves safe, or help them, if we can’t keep them under control.”

                _Wonder how many times he has recited that memorized speech?_ “That’s why we have straitjackets, masks and psychopharmacologicals.   All legal, and with no long term harm to the patient.”

                Arkham chuckled.  “If you’re worried about legalities, I assure you both the Gotham City P.D. and the Gotham Medical Board are well aware of our activities here.  It may not be a policy on paper – but they have always given us the freedom to do what we need to do.  They know what we’re dealing with here, so there’s no need to worry about your medical license or your freedom.”

                She shook her head.  “I wasn’t worried about either. I was worried about trying to psychoanalyze someone whose brain is simultaneously being turned into mush by another department I wasn’t even aware we had.”  Harleen knew she sounded angry, but she decided to go with it.   “You’re asking me, and my colleagues, to make an ice sculpture out of a glass of water.”

                “Not your colleagues, Harleen.  The only patient currently being treated with ECT is the Joker.”  He let that sink in for a moment.  “I trust you with the most dangerous patient in our care but I still need to ensure your safety.”

                She stood up.  “I can handle him without that.  Do you know what Ernest Hemingway said about ECT, right before he killed himself?  He realized he’d never be able to write again and said “It was a brilliant cure, but we lost the patient.”  The Joker is a genius and it’s that intellect that may be salvageable now that he’s willing to communicate and work with us.  He doesn’t need to be destroyed, he needs to be refocused.”

                The senior doctor gave her a patronizing smile.  “You’re so young and idealistic.  Thirty years from now, you’ll be the first to use whatever it takes to keep someone under control and not killing your staff members.  Have you forgotten what happened to Dr. Buchanan?” 

                Harleen had an idea.  “All right, give me a chance to prove to you that he can be controlled without torture.  I’d like him unrestrained for our sessions. I’ll bear the risk myself.  If something happens, I’ll be the only one to suffer, and if I’m correct and he shows himself to be manageable, you’ll consider stopping the ECT?”  She watched his reaction.  He didn’t look pleased, but he also sensed a way to get her out of his office before she got some idealistic-young-person idea like going to the media with her discovery. And if she might do that, then sadly it would be in everybody’s best interests if the Joker snapped her neck. 

                “If you’re willing to take the risk, by all means, I’ll authorize that today.”

                “Thank you.” She turned and headed out the door.  _So pretty,_ he thought, _but a little too smart. She thinks she can succeed where everybody else has failed.  She thinks she’s superior to them all._ He wondered if she was going to be a problem.


	8. Chapter 8

                 Ben was back in town and had taken Harleen out for a magnificent belated birthday dinner at the Gotham Club, one of those ultra-exclusive establishments that required a six figure initiation fee to get in.  His parents had a membership, which entitled him to visit the restaurant, but not the entire facility.  Rumors abounded that the meeting rooms upstairs were used by everyone from foreign leaders to local organized crime bosses.  They could be accessed only via a separate elevator inside a private, members-only garage.  Harleen wondered what they looked like.  She bet the Joker knew.  The restaurant was ornate and elegant, a tribute to a bygone time when people cared about craftsmanship and beautiful things. 

                “New bracelet, honey?” Ben asked, startling Harleen.  _Well, crap, I forgot to take it off._ She realized she had never removed it since the night she put it on. 

                “Yes,” Harleen smiled, thinking of the right answer, as she usually did.  “I had been admiring one like it that we couldn’t possibly afford, and then I found this replica on eBay for $60. Looks real, doesn’t it?” 

                “It’s almost as beautiful as you are.  I’m sorry I didn’t get to show you Dubai.  You would have loved it.  But since I was alone, all I did was work.”  Ben gave her a look of mock suffering, and she mused for a second about how conventionally handsome he was.  Other women were checking him out, and looking at her with poorly hidden jealousy.  She smiled and sipped her champagne. _Any woman in this room would jump at the chance,_ she reminded herself.  _You bore easily, it’s not normal.  What you’re attracted to would only bring you misery.  Physician, heal thyself.  You’re too smart to screw this up._

                “The same. I made great progress with some of my patients while you were gone and Dr. Arkham said I’ll have my six month review soon, and most likely a substantial raise.” 

                Ben scowled slightly.  “I’m happy for you, but I do worry about you working there. With your credentials, we could set you up in a nice practice in a good part of town…analyzing suicidal housewives and emo teenagers, not serial killers.  I know you think that wouldn’t be challenging, but now that I’ve closed this deal, we’re in a position to think seriously about our future.”   He saw the rebellious, you-don’t-own-me look starting in her eyes and decided it was a good time to redirect the conversation. Harleen saw him reaching into an inside jacket pocket and knew what was coming before he extricated the small box.  She schooled her face into an acceptable expression and resisted the urge to bolt from the table as he snapped the box open.

                The ring was beautiful, a marquise cut diamond of at least three carats, ringed by a halo of brilliant green emeralds.  She stared at the emeralds, thinking of the Joker’s hair and her dreams about running her hands through it.   It registered dimly that Ben was talking, saying the typical things about their love and their future and wanting to have a family with her. _Did she want any of that?_ She didn’t know anymore. She supposed she had resigned herself to it and decided it was a good decision.  _Was it possible to have anything that she did want without destroying her life?_ Unlikely.  She knew she wasn’t exactly mentally normal.  Her past experiences had seen to that.  Some people asked themselves what Jesus would do; Harleen asked herself what a mentally healthy person would do, and those answers had carried her to where she was today – a successful, 26 year old professional woman sitting across from a multi-millionaire extending an engagement ring.  She was not going to screw it up now on the basis of some troubling dreams and an overwhelming desire to touch a patient.  Logical Harleen was going to stomp Emotional Harleen completely out of existence, whether she liked it or not.

                And so she smiled and said yes and let Ben slip the ring on her finger.  _At least you already have access to all of the anti-depressants you’ll need when you wind up another rich, miserable Connecticut housewife,_ she thought. But a rich, miserable housewife was a vast improvement from where she had been ten years ago and she could never forget that.

> _Harleen walked through Gotham, remembering everything she knew about how to avoid an attack. Walk confidently, and like you have a plan.  Pay attention to your surroundings.  She didn’t feel scared to be out on the street alone; her home had become the terrifying place, with a stepfather who thought nothing of creeping into her bed late at night, covering her mouth with a strong hand and warning her that her emotionally fragile mother was likely to kill herself if she knew.  Harleen believed him; Diana was desperately in love with Kevin and he was the only reason she wanted to be alive.  It was easier to leave, but leaving with no plan and winding up another homeless prostitute didn’t sound like a good choice either.  She needed money.  A fake ID was easy enough to get and soon she was serving drinks at the Bahama Room, a strip club in a part of town she knew Diana would never think to look for her.  The manager, an obese Italian man named Sal, constantly tried to get her on the stage but Harleen declined politely, observing from the sidelines how the dancers manipulated their marks.  It was enlightening.  She was making enough as a waitress to pay for her expenses and her share of the apartment she shared with three of the dancers.  She’d taken some martial arts classes to ensure she would never again be the victim of someone’s unwanted attention and she kept up with her gymnastics.  It was simple enough to fake some transcripts and appear to have graduated from high school.  Gotham University accepted her and the gymnastics team offered her a full scholarship.  At 17, she had saved herself and she never forgot how she did it – by making logical decisions.  Emotional Harleen would have been strangled by her pimp by now; Logical Harleen was sailing through college with a 4.0 and headed for a successful career._ Never forget _, she told herself._


	9. Chapter 9

                Harleen hesitated before she entered the session room. Ring off or ring on?  She sighed. He probably knew already.  She was always watching for a familiar face when she was out in public, seeing if he had a particular henchman assigned to her, but there had been no discernible pattern.  Yet somehow he always knew what had happened in between their sessions, and always dropped an offhand hint to remind her that he knew.  _Screw it_ , she thought.  She left the ring on; there was no sense in hiding her changed status from her patients and perhaps she needed the reminder as well.  That thought firmly in mind, she swung open the heavy door and entered the room. What she saw made her knees go weak.

                The Joker was sitting there wearing only a pair of gray sweatpants.  His right arm was in a sling that laid across his heavily muscled chest and across a set of enviably rippled abs.  Her breath caught in her throat but she bit her lip and reminded herself to be professional.  _He was beautiful_ , she thought. _Perhaps I should have kept him covered up with that straitjacket…for my own protection._

                “Good afternoon, J.,” She sat primly down in her chair, grateful for the table between them and the fact that she couldn’t actually reach him.  “What happened to your arm?  It’s not in your chart.” 

                “Does that surprise you, Doctor?  There is a lot that isn’t in my…chart.”  She acknowledged the truth of that with a nod.  “Now _your_ arm, Doctor, is quite interesting today.  It looks like a map of your divided loyalties.”  He giggled at his own joke and she glanced down to see Ben’s ring on her finger and the Joker’s bracelet on the same wrist. _Touche_ , she thought. 

                “My loyalty is all to myself,” she told him.  Revealing, to be sure, but also truthful, and meant to put him in his place. She was using them both and she didn’t mind this one knowing it.  She suspected he’d be more impressed than hurt, and his answering cackle told her she was correct. 

                “Ah, Dr. Quinzel. Now I start to see your true nature and it resembles…my own.”

                She tilted her head and gave him a smile.  “But I play within the rules of society.  You should try it. You could have anything you want within the system, and not have upper management shocking your brain into jello.”

                “Too easy, Doctor. I could but it’s not who I am.” He saw her reading his tattoos, unable to take her eyes off of his body, and smiled.  She was so focused that she didn’t pick up on his reaction, which wasn’t like her.  Ah, today would be a good day to play with the always entertaining Dr. Quinzel.  She was like a yo-yo that he was winding up really good, every time he saw her, so that when the eventual payoff came, she would perform any trick he asked.  It was going to be delicious. 

                “Expressing our true nature is popular in Internet memes and self-help books, but often diametrically opposed to our best interests in real life.”  She unconsciously twisted the ring on her finger and his face lit up.  That one she noticed, and wondered if it was too obvious if she sat on her hands for the remainder of their session.  She mustered up as professional a tone as she could.  “I know that you value your intelligence.  Why stay here and allow it to be destroyed?”

                He grinned, silver grill shining at her in the glare from the overhead light.  “Aw, Doctor. I didn’t know you cared.”  She scowled, determined not to let this conversation go down an unprofessional road.  Her thoughts today were unprofessional enough.

                “I don’t like watching human beings self-destruct.  It’s one reason I went into this line of work.” 

                “You…went into this line of work because you teetered on the line between destruction and survival yourself for years. Do you think there’s _anything_ I don’t know about you?”  He gloated.  “You were working in one of my own clubs when you were a teenage runaway.”

                That took her aback. How long had he known that?  Had he watched her then?  She had never seen him in the club.  Still, it didn’t matter.  “I won the battle,” she said simply.  “Why do you want to lose it?”

                “ _Such_ a victory, Dr. Quinzel. A dangerous job where you have all of the responsibility with none of the authority.  Then you go home to a boring, golf-addicted yuppie who’s never had an original thought.  I bet that’s exciting.”  He started to slow clap for her, slapping his good hand against the one restrained in the sling. 

                Harleen refused to be baited. This was the most emotion he had ever shown and she could keep learning more about his mind if she stayed calm and asked the right questions.  She looked across the table into his ice blue eyes.

                “Does _anything_ other than violence excite you?”

                He shifted in his chair, about to answer, and then a look of pain crossed his face and he sucked in his breath.

                “Are you okay?” she asked. 

                “Damn sling,” he grumbled.  “The arm’s broken but they won’t set it because I could use a cast as a weapon.  Sling keeps…crumpling up.”  He reached across himself and tried to awkwardly use his left hand to distribute the sling evenly under his forearm, grimacing. 

                She knew he was tough about pain, almost superhuman, so if he was reacting to this, it must really hurt.  Despite her specialty, she was also trained as a medical doctor and it was against her nature to watch someone suffer when she could help them.  Harleen got up and walked around the table to help him.   She was still wary, and knew she was safer behind him, so she bent over his left shoulder and placed both hands on the sling to pull it taut.  As she did so, he slid his free hand up the left side of her jawbone and turned her head, meeting her lips with his.

                It was like a drug, a fantastic drug, and even though Harleen had never done anything illegal, she knew in an instant how it felt and why people gave their whole lives over to it without a second thought.  Her entire body went hot and weak and all she could do was kiss him back.   The wave of pleasure was indescribable; it was as if no one else she had ever kissed had the slightest talent in that regard.  His tongue slid into her mouth and she sucked on it, unable to stop herself.  The silver grill pinched her lip and she felt the tang of her own blood but she didn’t stop.  It was like her dreams but this time it was really happening and she refused to wake up, didn’t care about the consequences.  His hand dropped from her face and he ran it quickly up the inside of her thigh under her skirt running one finger across her panties.  She almost fell to her knees but staggered back, and stood there trembling all over, half from lust and half from anger at the triumphant smile on his face. 

Harleen hit the panic button in her pocket, summoning the guards to end the session.  Her hand came up to cover her mouth, afraid that her lip was bloody and the Joker began to laugh.  He was still laughing when the guards walked in to escort him out.

“In answer to your last question, Dr. Quinzel…there is one…other thing.”


	10. Chapter 10

                 She didn’t write her reports. Couldn’t. Her brain was so scrambled she felt like she was the latest victim of Arkham’s secret ECT program.  Harleen walked straight to her car and sat numbly inside of it. She locked the doors and began to cry, hysterical wracking sobs.  She sat there for a long time and tried to get herself together, falling back on her usual logical way of thinking, but every sensible thought made her cry harder.

                _You do not want this,_ Logical Harleen admonished her.  _He is a drug, no different than heroin.  Designed to raise your endorphin level sky high and then drop you off the cliff.  This is weakness.  This is insanity.  You know better.  Shooting yourself in the head would be less painful and have the same ultimate result._

                She knew it was the truth. People who associated with the Joker were headed for their own death and it wasn’t a long trip. They couldn’t resist the lure of money, but she already had money – Ben was successful and becoming more successful, and she was no slouch herself with a big raise headed her way.  Whatever she wanted materially was hers for the taking, or soon would be.  The Joker’s words popped into her head.  Too easy.  It was all too easy.  Ben was easy.  Having his money was easy.  College had been easy.  The world was designed for average people; when you had a high IQ and a logical, manipulative mind, most things were all too easy to get, so what was left to want?  She knew the answer:  The person you couldn’t manipulate. The person who would never be easy. 

                _Walk away,_ Logical Harleen ordered.  _Quit the job.  Ben would be delighted if you told him you wanted to quit working and make a lovely home for him.  Have a baby.  His parents would probably throw an extra million at you for a grandchild of their own._

                She rebelled against the very thought and then argued with herself some more.

                _You want to walk right into the crack house and light up a pipe, don’t you?  All this work. All these years of making good choices and you want to throw it away for a rush._

_I love him._

_You do not, stop. You lust after him because he’s hot and he’s complicated.  You’re a textbook case. You’re not even original. There are a million basic bitches just like yourself who’d have reacted exactly the same as you did.  You’re pathetic.  Red Riding Hood who just can’t stay away from the wolf.  You know exactly how this works._

                She did, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.  Harleen wiped her eyes and started the car.  She’d cancel her dinner plans with Ben and draft her reports this evening.

 

* * *

 

                So much for good intentions. Harleen was not drafting reports.  She was drinking wine and watching Titanic for the 12th time. If she was going to cry, she might as well hole up in her apartment and get it all out.

                _This is normal,_ she told herself.  _You’ve repressed your emotions for so many years.  You’ll feel better after you work through this.  No permanent harm done._ The movie wound up with the main character’s life in pictures as she lived to a ripe old age, married another man, had his children, and died with the memory of her brief true love still fresh in her mind.  _That’s what most people do,_ she reminded herself.  Very few wound up with the person who set their heart on fire, and many psychiatric journals even argued that those feelings were unhealthy infatuation and not true love. 

                _Also,_ she reminded herself, _he is not in love with you.  He is a psychopathic genius locked up in an asylum who is manipulating you for his personal gain and entertainment._ It wasn’t like she didn’t have his file, as well as 46,246 search results on Google. The Joker had never been seen to be in a loving relationship with anyone.  He always had women around, but his disdain for them was apparent. They were temporary playthings and he was as likely as not to shoot them when he grew tired of them. 

                _Perhaps it would be worth it…_ Her logical mind couldn’t successfully repress the memory of that afternoon.  She kept going back to the feeling of his mouth locked on hers, his long fingers running up the inside of her thigh.  Harleen had never felt like that with anybody else. She enjoyed sex despite how she had been introduced to it, and knew what would get her off, but it was like the difference between driving her SUV and the Porsche.  Until you drove the Porsche, you didn’t know how it could feel…a mix of insane power and freedom, wanting something and having it not only fulfilled but surpassed.  Ben was her SUV, perfectly useful and good looking, but the Joker was a Porsche. Just one that was likely to explode in a burst of flames at any moment and kill her.  A line of lyrics came into her head:

                _Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street_

She was trying to talk herself out of it for all she was worth, but deep down she was already half convinced that hitting that wall would be worth it, if she could only feel truly alive on the way there.

* * *

                Harleen drove into Arkham the next morning with that song blasting from the car stereo.  She did not know what she was going to do, but her eyes were dry and clear despite the bottle of wine she’d polished off the night before.   One of the hardest things we all face in life is the fear of the unknown, she thought. The inability to see around the next corner drives some people mad.  Every day could bring anything to us – a winning lottery ticket, a drunk driver screeching down the road as we cross the street, sudden fame, an aneurysm that ends it all.  None of us know our destinies. If you want God to laugh, tell him your plans, the saying went.  Harleen didn’t believe in God but it didn’t matter; the sentiment was correct.  You could tiptoe around making the most careful of decisions and still have your life turned upside-down by some fortune or misfortune you had never anticipated.  Like a green-haired maniac with icy blue eyes who was an incredible kisser. 

                _Let the games begin,_ she thought _._

                When she got to her office, there was a box waiting on her desk.  It bore a nondescript label from a gift shop in Gotham, so she figured Ben had sent her a surprise and slit the tape open with her letter opener.  She pulled out what looked like a snow globe, but when she switched it on, it lit up with a profusion of tiny lightning bolts.  When you touched it, the sparks danced to your fingertips. It was mesmerizing.  Harleen pulled out a tiny envelope from the box and extricated the card.

                _The pleasure is worth the pain._

_~ J_

She stared at the card, running her fingers over it and realized she was forgetting to breathe.  Her mind flashed back to one of their earlier sessions.

_“Do you reaaaaally believe this place could hold me if I chose to go?” he asked her._

_Harleen supposed that it did not, but was confused just the same.  “Why wouldn’t you choose your freedom if it was an option?”_

_The Joker smiled.  “It’s easy to get. Most things are easy to get – freedom, money, guns, alcohol, drugs…women. After a while, it’s all so tedious.”_

_“You stay in an asylum because it’s too easy to leave?” she asked, incredulous._

He hadn’t answered her then, but now she knew the answer. There was one thing that existed at Arkham that he couldn’t have – and wanted.  And he was willing to go through anything, even ECT treatments, to stay right here and try to get it.

                _But is that love or simply the desire for a challenge?_   She knew the answer was probably the latter. And did it even matter?  If she didn’t stop this in its tracks by leaving her job and never seeing him again, if she allowed it to continue and progress, the outcome was inevitable and clear and it wouldn’t matter if it was love or lust or momentary entertainment.  The story would end the same way.  She wouldn’t live to see thirty. 

                And then she scoffed at her own line of thinking.  Nothing held him here but his own choice, and he would have no trouble finding her if she left her job.  If he wanted to find her, he would find her, and innocent people would die.  She could only imagine if he found her with Ben. He didn’t seem threatened by him in the least, but he would shoot him without a second thought if Ben tried to protect her or argued that she was his.  _You don’t have the right to take down innocent people as a by-product of your own confused mind_.  She would stay at Arkham where whatever went down would go down with people who had knowingly signed on to work with the criminally insane and knew the risks. 

                Harleen touched the globe and watched the lightning and the sparks snap to her finger.  _Like a moth to the flame_ , she thought.  _How appropriate._ She pushed the globe to the corner of her desk and got to work on her delinquent reports from the previous evening.  Despite her desire to see the Joker, she had cancelled his session for today. It was Friday, she was leaving early for an almost-four-day weekend, and she relished the thought of making him wait until Tuesday to see her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Joker's gift in this chapter is an actual thing. They have it at Toys R Us and it's pretty cool. I thought it was perfect and exactly the sort of thing he would send to her.


	11. Chapter 11

                Harleen and her future mother in law were spending the day in the Hamptons looking at potential wedding venues.  Well, Cecilia was looking at them.  Harleen was looking for an opportunity to get away from Cecilia and go to Robin Lane Academy.  She had learned there was still one teacher there who had been at the exclusive private school in the late 1980’s and she was determined to interview her in person to see if she could identify the Joker.  She had even paid for an off duty police artist to produce a rendering of what he might have looked like at age eight, and she had that carefully folded in the outside pocket of her purse. 

                “What do you think of this, Harleen?”   Cecilia called her over to look at some brochures.  “They can go inside or out so weather won’t be an issue, and they have the best reviews on food.  Plus, look at that balcony for wedding pictures. They’ll be lovely!”

                Harleen nodded.  “I agree, I think this is the perfect place.  And with plenty of hotel space, there will be no need for anyone to drive back to the city – especially if they’ve had a few too many.” 

                Her future mother in law smiled at her.  “You’re always so smart and thoughtful.  We are so excited to have you join our family.”

                For the first time, Harleen felt genuinely guilty.  Lying to Ben didn’t bother her, and she had already figured out that it was because he was so oblivious…they had been together for two years and he had no idea who she really was.  He didn’t ask her questions that would have revealed that. Deep down, he didn’t care.  She was beautiful and polite and charming and accomplished and she fit Ben’s image of the kind of woman he saw himself with. He cared about her, she supposed he loved her, but he didn’t care who she _was_ , deep down.  She suspected he didn’t really want to know.  He had made it clear many times that he’d like to nip this career thing of hers in the bud, not caring that she loved it. 

                Whereas his mother was 100% kind and genuinely interested in her. She felt bad that she could think of nothing more than escaping from this sweet woman, who thought she loved her son, and running off to research her psychotic, criminal…crush?   Ugh.  She picked up the phone and pretended it had vibrated and she was answering it.

                “Hello?”  She paused as if listening and walked far enough away that Cecilia would not notice there was no crackle of conversation on the other end.  “I see.  Yes, I will get over there this afternoon.  Thank you.”  Harleen pretended to hang up and walked quickly back to where Cecilia was browsing through the catering menu.  “I’m so sorry, but that was work and one of my patients has attempted to kill herself. I need to go back to town and see her immediately.  Can you catch the bus back to town later?  Ben should be able to pick you up if Mark can’t.”

                “Of course.  You’re so committed to your patients.  Do you mind if I stay and work out a menu with the chef?  You can veto anything you don’t like, of course.”  Cecilia’s enjoyment of the wedding planning process was obvious; it was a shame she was planning an event that the bride didn’t want to attend.  _STOP IT, HARLEEN!_ The two sides of her personality were waging such an epic battle in her head that she was starting to worry she was crossing the line into schizophrenia.  She pulled herself together and smiled fondly at Cecilia.  “Of course!  I’m sure you’ll make wonderful choices. Thank you so much for your help.” 

                They hugged and Harleen headed back to her car, deliberately turning out of the driveway in the direction of the city in case anyone was watching before circling back around on side roads and heading for the school.  She heard the approving voice of the Joker join the chorus in her head.  _Very good, my dear. You’re always thinking. You’re going to make an excellent criminal._ She shook it off.  _I’m going to find out who he is,_ she told herself. _Maybe destroying the mystery will destroy the attraction and I can go on with my life._ She hadn’t blown things up yet.

                She pulled into the school’s parking lot and asked for Mrs. Delmonico at the desk.  A minute later she was met by an elderly, but neatly dressed and obviously very sharp, woman. 

                “Mrs. Delmonico?  I’m Dr. Harleen Quinzel.”  They shook hands and headed down the hall to the second grade classroom the teacher had worked in for almost forty years.  “I really appreciate your taking the time to meet with me.  I have a patient whose past is a complete mystery, but I believe he was in your class around 1988.”

                Mrs. Delmonico crouched down with some difficulty and pulled out a couple of yearbooks. “That’s a long time ago, so I may need some help jogging my memory.” 

                Harleen pulled out the picture and unfolded it.  “We think he looked something like this, and I would not be surprised if he was a disciplinary problem. You might remember him.”  She passed the drawing over and saw the teacher’s eyes grow wide.  The older woman looked up at her in shock.

                “He is alive?”

                “Do you recognize him?” 

                Mrs. Delmonico sat down at her desk suddenly as if her legs had given way.  “I do.  Little Joseph Kerr.  Always the target of the bullies around here.  And then he disappeared.”

                That threw Harleen for a loop.  She expected to hear about a child who was a psychopath from the start…part of her hoped to hear about the kind of behaviors that would sicken her and cure her of her obsession…one tortured puppy would have done it.  But he sounded like a victim.

                “What happened?”

                “Little Joe was a smart boy but he was no match for some of these rich boys. They liked to harass him, beat him up, steal his things.  I told our principal about it many times but he wouldn’t take action. The parents were major donors, you see.  Those boys could do as they pleased.” Harleen nodded. It wasn’t an uncommon tale.  And she would bet they, and their families, had been members at Oakhaven. 

                “You said he disappeared?”

                “Yes. When he was nine. We had a lot of chaos around here at that time. The old country club burned down…38 dead…including many of my students. We all knew it wasn’t an accident, but they hushed it up. They didn’t want to deal with the truth so they wrote it off as an accidental electrical fire.  It was no accident.  Anyway, a lot of Little Joe’s tormentors died in that blaze and I always wondered if he could have had anything to do with it. But he was eight.  You don’t think an eight year old could pull something like that off.”  Mrs. Delmonico stared off into space for a moment, remembering.  “And then he just disappeared.  We all assumed someone had snatched him, but they left no trace.  And it was funny how the police handled it.  They just didn’t seem to be trying, you know?  And the newspapers wouldn’t touch the story.  It was strange.”

                “What happened to his parents?”

                “Oh,” Mrs. Delmonico rolled her eyes.  “They were a piece of work.  His mother drank herself to death after it happened. She wasn’t sober before but the loss of her son put her over the edge.  His father had nine more dollars than God.  He hardly seemed to notice what happened to his wife, and he had a new young one in place inside of a year.  They moved away, and I believe they had more children.” 

                “Thank you, Mrs. Delmonico.  You’ve been extremely helpful.”

                The old teacher raised her hand and flipped it over, gesturing. “So?  What happened to Little Joe?”

                Harleen shook her head. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it. But he is very much alive.” She turned and headed for the car.  Now she had to decide what to do with all of her newfound information – and you could bet the two Harleens wouldn’t agree on that decision.


	12. Chapter 12

The Joker looked up sharply when Harleen walked into their session on Tuesday, and didn’t even attempt to hide his annoyance.  “Where the hell have you been for five days?”

                She sat down, pressing her lips together and willing herself not to think about their last session.  “You don’t know?  That would be a first.”

                “Wasn’t what I meant,” he responded with a growl.  “Isn’t it a little early to be shopping for elementary schools?”

                “Mrs. Delmonico says hi.”

                He hadn’t known for sure what she was doing at Robin Lane. He hadn’t thought she was smart enough to connect all of those dots. The police had never even come close.  The Joker started to chuckle under his breath.  “You are a wonder.  How is it you’ve stayed on the straight and narrow so long?”

                “I value my freedom.”

                “What freedom?  What, exactly, are you free to do?  You have to lie and sneak off to visit an elementary school.”

                _Accurate_ , she thought, but now was the time to turn this into a useful session.  “What’s your definition of freedom?”

                “I do exactly as I please. I indulge…all of my desires.  There is no failure in my world, no one says no to me.  Everything is mine for the taking.  Whatever I desire, will be in my hands.”

                She willed herself not to think about his hands and kept her tone as light as possible.  “That sounds easy,” she observed, “and you told me you don’t like things that are easy.”

                “There are a few challenges left,” he admitted.  “Take the Bat.  I haven’t killed him because I don’t really want to kill him. I _want_ to turn him.  He’s not as saintly as he thinks. There’s a streak in there…a temper...I can goad him…I can trick him…It’s a slow process.  Everyone has a moral code, and lines in the sand. So you push the line over just a skosh. They aren’t comfortable with it but they tolerate it.  They justify it.  They tell themselves they had to do whatever. It was a means…to an end.  Like you and your psychiatry.  You decided that bracelet was a therapeutic prop,” he chuckled, “…and that justified keeping it.  Tell me, Dr. Quinzel, how do you justify our last session?”  He grinned broadly and she remembered the silver grill cutting her lip and shivered. The reaction wasn’t lost on him.

                Harleen met his eyes squarely.  “I don’t.  I don’t delude myself that I’m a saintly person.  I’m human.  I frequently want things that are not healthy or moral or in my best interest. I can’t control what I want but I can control my actions.”

                “You _can_?  Coulda fooled-”

                “-Try it again, see what you get,” she interrupted.   My, she was cocky today.  _Five days apart and she’s decided she’s back in charge.  Time to show her she’s not._ The Joker stood up and walked over to her side of the table.  He leaned down so his mouth was almost touching her ear, but not quite. 

                “You don’t want what’s easy...either,” he whispered, slowly moving his head so that the last breath came out on her neck.  Then he stood up and quietly returned to his chair. 

                She had been waiting for him to touch her and she was going to pull up her old training and send him flying. But he hadn’t touched her.  He had walked over, breathed on her and left her short of breath and wet between the legs, trying desperately to come up with something to say, like an actress who had forgotten her lines.  _Think, Harleen!  All of this new information, and you can’t come up with a question?_

                “Does your father know you’re alive?” she blurted out.

                “I have seen my father, but he does not know I’m alive,” he answered enigmatically.  Harleen made a mental note to check to see if his father survived the encounter.  She doubted it.   

                “So Oakhaven was revenge?”    

                He sneered at her.  “Don’t waste my time with obvious questions. If you can’t think straight around me anymore, go sit in your office and don’t waste my time.”  That made her mad but he wasn’t wrong. She was an idiot and she remembered his words at their first session.  _I’d prefer not to talk to idiots._ If she didn’t get it together, she was going to wind up with a broken neck and nothing to show for it.

                Her eyes were watering and she knew she was done.  “I’m too tired to do this today.” She stood up, hitting the button as she did so.  “I’ll see you again on Friday.”  Harleen walked out of the room, drove straight home and slept like a dead person for the next 12 hours. 


	13. Chapter 13

The Joker was pacing back and forth in his cell.

                God, she was smart.  So smart…No one else had ever come close. He was always ahead of everybody by a mile, even as a child.  Even at eight, he had planned and executed the perfect revenge, neatly destroying all of his enemies with the precision of a Roman emperor.  Who could say that?  No one. All these years, he’d been a king, unstoppable. The best efforts of the Gotham City P.D. to stop him were laughable.  The Bat was the only worthy adversary.

                He let himself be caught sometimes only because it was in his best interests to do so. Arkham was a criminal career fair, as far as he was concerned, full of potential job seekers.  They idolized him and he rewarded them with whatever mattered to their twisted minds…money, drugs, revenge on the parent who beat them.  The rewards were simple to provide and bought him the best possible employees – people who felt incredible gratitude and loyalty to the Joker, and were too crazy to have any sense of self-preservation.  Most of them had no families, or had been disowned and forgotten, so if they irritated him and he shot them, no one noticed.  He could sit back at Arkham and get anything he wanted done on the outside. Almost all of the inmates branded as sane and released in the past year had already been on the Joker’s payroll.  He had been about to break himself out when the sessions with Dr. Quinzel started and he was intrigued enough to decide he could waste a few more weeks of his life behind Arkham’s barbed wire fences. 

                He rarely expended any mental energy on the staff.  The guards were brutes who enjoyed torturing captives…it was all a canned hunt to them.  How boring.  It lacked all sense of sportsmanship to torture someone who couldn’t escape or fight back.  The Joker only got a charge out of torture when his planned victim was liable to get in a good stab at the Joker in the process. He laughed out loud. His card to Harleen with his latest gift had said “the pleasure is worth the pain.” That was true in all things; in fact, he’d go so far as to say there was no true pleasure without the edge of pain or the risk of death to enhance it. 

                The Joker laid back on his cot and stared at the ceiling, imagining the things he would like to do to Doctor Quinzel.  He’d had women as beautiful and could have one even in here – Arkham had no short supply of easily-bribed guards.  He’d had women as classy, perhaps more so – Harleen might look like Grace Kelly’s twin sister now, but she’d come from a tough part of town and a childhood that rivaled his own for saddest story.  But Harleen, she was such a fun plaything.  She was quick, that was the word. She had the power to surprise him.  She was a little bright spot of entertainment in this dull place. Sometimes, he could practically see the angel and devil sitting on her shoulders and warring with each other over who was going to own her.  He was pretty sure the tide had already turned, but she was putting up a good fight.  He hoped she didn’t bolt.  She’d looked like she wanted to today.  No, she needed to stay right here so that he could keep pushing her over that tiny, flexible moral line. She hadn’t even noticed how far it had moved already.   

 

* * *

 

                Writer’s block. Harleen remembered it well from her university days.  You could have all the facts and research and information to work with, but somehow when you had to start putting it out on paper in a coherent form, you couldn’t find the words.  That’s how she felt now.  She had been reviewing all of her notes on her sessions with the Joker, and pacing around her office as she did so. _At least I’m burning calories_ , she thought sarcastically. _Well, that and being too anxious to eat._

                She had to come up with a good plan for their next session, tomorrow.  She’d remembered the immediate scorn when she asked a dumb question and had beaten herself up over it at least a thousand times already.  Right now she was so desperate that she’d taken to reviewing all of her old psychology textbooks from medical school.  The harder she tried to come up with a plan, the worse it got. She considered approaches and then thought of fifty reasons why they wouldn’t work. His father. She needed to get him to talk about his father, but how could she start that discussion in a way that would ensure he'd answer?  And not just turn it around and distract her or do or say something that turned her into an incoherent mess?

                She threw the book she’d been reading at her couch in frustration.  She wondered if she should share her notes with one of the other doctors and get advice from someone who wasn’t too attracted to the patient to focus on his treatment.  There was nothing wrong with sharing confidential notes with another licensed professional, but to Harleen it felt like a betrayal.  It felt like telling another person about their relationship, which was the last thing she would ever do.

                _You have gone off the edge,_ Logical Harleen interjected.  _You’re keeping a criminal’s secrets for him.  You stopped putting what you’ve learned in your reports; in fact you even falsify your reports to protect his identity.  Whose team are you on? I think we know the answer.  Maybe you should junk the textbooks and go take shooting lessons. It seems like a skill you’ll need sooner than you think!_

                Ugh.  Maybe coffee would help. It certainly couldn't hurt.  She headed for the doctors’ lounge to get a refill.


	14. Chapter 14

                Harleen walked in the door, cup in hand, noting with some relief that the room was empty.  Her eyes darted to the clock to see that it was after nine.  Well, that explained it.  Everyone but the 2nd shift guards were gone but she didn’t really want to go home. Her outside life felt like it belonged to someone else, another Harleen, the Harleen she used to be, and it was getting more and more difficult to continue with the charade.   She desperately wanted to talk about the Joker, but she had no one she trusted to have that conversation with.  She had so little interest in planning her own wedding that she’d pretty much delegated it all to Cecilia, blaming it on her heavy workload.  Fortunately, Ben was just as busy as she was with the merger, and rarely complained about her late nights.  She filled her coffee and headed for the door but it opened into her.

                Her coffee cup flew out of her hands and smashed. The Joker had her flat against the wall with his good hand around her throat.  His body pressed against her, despite his broken arm between them. She couldn’t move and waited, eerily calm, to see if he was bringing her death or something else. 

                “The security around this place sucks, sweetheart.   You should file a complaint.”

                She was terrified but she also wanted him to kiss her. _My God, you’re a mess,_ Logical Harleen piped up, but her irritating voice of reason was quickly drowned out by the realization that she was wedged between a wall and the hottest man she had ever laid hands on.  Their hips were together and she could feel him hard against her. He felt positively _huge_.  She licked her dry lips and decided this might be a good way to die. 

                “Whaddaya going to do to me, Mistah J?”  The last vestige of her professional persona slipped away and she was the girl from Brooklyn who had wanted a life of excitement once, but had allowed her fears and her past to trap her in a life of routine and duty.  But now, there was nothing left to fear. She would either die, or she wouldn’t.  She was either another victim to him, or something more. 

                “What do you want me to do to you, Harleen?” His breath was hot on her neck and made her shiver in anticipation.  “It’s late but we’re not alone.  Anyone could walk in.  The door doesn’t lock.  Do you care?”  His hand was just tight enough around her neck to hold her in place, but she could have gotten away from him.  She was fit, trained to fight, and her hands were free.  They both knew it. He had laid the choice before her and it was the moment of truth. 

                She looked into the crystal blue eyes only inches away from her own and saw the only person who knew who she truly was and what she wanted.  If that meant she was doomed – so be it.  

                “I don’t care,” she whispered.  His hand came off her neck and pushed up her skirt.  She raised one knee to allow him easier access and heard him chuckling, low in his throat.  There was no point pretending now.  She knew what was going to happen and knew it had been inevitable since the moment they met.  He ripped her panties in two with one well-timed pull and his mouth crashed into hers, his tongue twisting around hers.  She sucked on it desperately, the need within her growing to an unbearable level.  Her hand reached down for him but he had already freed himself from his pants and he was rubbing his massive cock along her drenched slit.  Harleen squirmed, trying to force him inside of her, and he growled against her ear. 

                “Normally I’d torture you more but we’re on a tight schedule today. The guards will have noticed I’m gone by now.  Someone should be walking in here any moment.”  With that he slammed into her. The pleasure was so intense that she bit his shoulder, breaking the skin.  He kept whispering in her ear about who might walk in…Dr. Arkham, now wouldn’t that be a surprise?  Or old Jane, bet they could teach her a thing or two.

                “They don’t know who you are, do they Harley?  They don’t know you’re a dirty slut.  You like this. You like that we could get caught,”  he whispered.  The combination of his dirty whisperings, his massive cock pumping back and forth inside of her and imagining her stuffy coworkers watching drove her over the edge in record time.  Harleen felt like she was exploding from the inside out and all her bones had turned to liquid.  Nothing had ever felt like this. Nothing had ever felt this good. Nothing would ever make her give this up.   She bit her own lip bloody trying not to cry out.  He came with a growl, biting her ear and drawing blood, but it only intensified her pleasure. 

                She leaned against the wall still shaking and felt something in her hand.  He curled her fist around what remained of her panties and stuffed the hand into the pocket of her lab coat.  Then he reached up and pulled some of her hair free of her careful updo to cover her bloodied ear and stepped back to admire his masterpiece. They could both hear the guards coming closer down the hall as they opened and closed doors, searching. 

                “There we go,” he whispered.  “Just like new.  At least to the casual observer.”

                He started laughing as the guards burst in and threw him to the floor, and did not stop even when they wrenched the broken arm behind his back to handcuff him.

                “Dr. Quinzel, are you all right?” a burly guard named Horton asked, concern all over him as he looked at her and the broken pieces of coffee cup all over the floor.  She could feel her lip swelling, her ear was throbbing, and she wasn’t positive she could walk straight.  She hoped she didn’t look as disheveled as she felt.    

                “I’m fine.  He has never tried to hurt me,” she said, and it was the truth.  “Please uncuff him and take him to the infirmary.  You probably just rebroke his arm.”

                “With all due respect, he’s broken worse on my guys."  They got the Joker up and marched him out. 

                “See you tomorrow, Doctor!” he called out cheerfully on his way out.

                Maybe this was what insanity felt like.  Maybe she had finally lost her mind. She felt like the entire life she’d walked into Arkham Asylum with that first day with had been pushed aside, that nothing else could exist next to this, next to him. There wasn't room. He was everything, he took up all the spaces in her head, and there was no room left for the fear that should have stopped her. There was nothing left of her except an uncontrollable need for him.  She remembered Hemingway’s words about ECT.  It was a brilliant cure, but we lost the patient.  She had lost herself as part of her brilliant cure, and the worst part was, she didn’t care. 


End file.
